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Pollock’s prototypes Although James Pollock & Co Ltd was influential in promoting the small motor coaster and the Swedish Bolinders engine as discussed in Chapter 7, this Faversham shipyard built many more lighters, canal craft and tugs than it did coastal cargo vessels. Even some of the motor coasters it built were classified as motor barges, as in the case of four craft completed in 1932 for London-based sailing barge owner E J & W Goldsmith Ltd.The 94-ft Goldbell, Goldcrown, Golddrift and Goldeve had twin Bolinders engines.The last of the four is shown as Leaspray*, following a major rebuild in 1949 that saw her grow very modestly to 97 ft and 199 grt while a Crossley oil engine driving a single screw replaced her original twin Bolinders installation.The modest boom on her solitary mast seems inadequate even for her relatively short hold, and was probably used simply to lift her boat off the hatch covers. Goldeve took the name Leaspray in 1952 when acquired along with her three Goldsmith sisters by Coastal Tankers Ltd, a London company that had recently decided to specialise in dry rather than liquid cargoes. She remained Leaspray under subsequent ownerships in London, Cowes and Bridgwater until 1966 when she
moved to the Clyde as Warlight. She ended her days working for a civil engineering contractor under the name Teamwork and was broken up in 1976. Suitable for relatively short voyages with modestsized cargoes, Leaspray was nevertheless a coaster.
Several characteristics of Leaspray are apparent in a larger coaster built by Pollock in 1934, Camroux I*. She has the same upright bow, single mast (no boom) and full stern, but the wheelhouse is more substantial and, at 137 ft overall and 324 grt, there is room for boats on the poop. Camroux I and her sister Camroux II were to a standard hull design marketed by Pollock as the ‘Landina’ type and were by far the largest vessels the Faversham yard had yet built.The launch of Camroux I was filmed, and the public
invited to inspect her in return for a donation to charity. The pair was built for the Newcastle Coal & Shipping Co Ltd to work to a coal depot at Rosebank Wharf, Fulham, which required both a low air-draught to negotiate the many Thames bridges and a substantial ballast capacity to ensure they could return down river. Her original fourstroke engines were made by Humboldt-Deutzmotoren AG of Cologne but, when spares became unobtainable during the war, Camroux I received a British-made two121
stroke engine by H Widdop & Co Ltd, and this was in turn replaced by a British Polar unit in 1945.The latter engine appears to have given particularly long service. Sold by her Newcastle owners in 1960, Camroux I became The Marquis in the fleet of John Hay & Sons Ltd, Glasgow (by then a subsidiary of F T Everard & Sons Ltd). After a further sale to Greek owners in 1966, she remained in Lloyd’s Register until 2011, although it had heard nothing of the vessel since 1995, when named Stamata II.